diet

Losing weight

I have lost at least 20-25 pounds... I have gone in three notches on my belt. I know that I haven't yet reached my goal. M is funny.. she keeps telling me... "you know, I don't like skinny men" :) me? skinny?

So now I am 6ft and around 230... but I am husky.. with a big chest.. so now I just need to lose a little more of this belly and I will be very happy.

Here is how I have done it. I went on the South Beach diet... the one that is similar to Atkins, but it doesn't let you eat all the meat that you want and you still need to watch fat content. The thing is.. it is very easy for me to do. A snack is a piece of cheese, and I love cheese. Here are some things that I haven't had at all for the past couple of months

Cheetohs-I loved cheetohs
anything with sugar.. no candy.. unless it is sugerless and even then.. I stay away from that because it can still be bad.
very little bread, but I didn't give it up alltogether.
I have had pizza twice... and I miss it, but both times, I felt bad afterwards.. a yucky physical feeling
no chips

Here is what I have been eating.

Breakfast.. eggs and ham and veggie omelets.. V8 juice.
a snack of a couple of Mozzerella strips
Lunch... well the California Cobb at Mcdonalds with grilled chicken and Paul Newman's low fat dressing is good.. you just have to take out the carrots and not get the croutons.
another snack of some cheese or.. I sometimes get some pistachios.
Dinner.. veggies, salad and some sort of meat or fish.

here is my favorite part.. I love these sugar free popsicles and I have to admit that I sometimes have 4 of them.. but they have no carbs.. no sugar.. no fat and they are only 15 calories each... and they are pretty satisfying.

Here is why I am bringing this up.

I am not craving anything anymore. As a matter of fact, I sometimes have to force myself to eat breakfast, because I know that it is important. I realized this because I am on a short trip. Yesterday, I worked all day long, visited a couple of hotels... at 7pm I realized that the only thing that I ate yesterday was 3 cheese sticks. I left home early so I could get to my first hotel early. I skipped lunch because I went to another hotel. I thought about dinner, but realized that maybe I wasn't all that hungry... how strange.

I did got out and get a salad and ate most of it.

So, I know that I will reach my goals.. I am pretty sure that by removing all that bad food from my diet and the eventual disappearance of my cravings has caused the following. When I get a craving for a snack, I don't even look at candy bars or chips. So... stopping at 7eleven or Git n Go(my favorite Oklahoma quick stop) isn't really all that fun. I stop and get a coffee(which by the way is not on the diet, but I didn't give up my caffeine) or I may grab one of those cheese sticks.

I don't really know if it is the diet.. or the lifestyle change. The next step is to find a workout activity that I will stick with. So far, I have lost this weight, without any real exercise! Well, maybe I do know... that my eating lifestyle has changed. My mind doesn't search for bad foods anymore.

The people in Tulsa are not really active physically. You don't see joggers or bicyclists or rollerbladers. As a matter of fact the most exercise that most people get is walking from the car to the restaurant. Some of it is because of the weather. I am sure that there are groups of people that get together to go bike riding, or rollerblading down by the river.. there is a nice bike path down there. That is what I would really like to do. Maybe M and I will start kick boxing or something else at a gym. We'll see.

It feels good to be lighter... I breath better and I even look in the mirror now and then. :)